EN 1002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Unbridled, Animal Communication, Intertextuality
1 Jul 2016
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Document Summary
John gardner"s grendel pov in the post-modern novel. Narrative sets up an automatic identification with i-speaker. Antagonist of epic becomes protagonist of novel. We get every other character from grendel"s perspective. Hrothgar, the shaper, unferth, his mother, dragon . Gardner is an excellent close-reader of beowulf, intertextual fun in seeing how he. Post-modern author playing games with the reader"s sympathy. Grendel is a murdering psychopath who devours human flesh, violent, insane, irrational, and delusional. Some kind of in-between creature, neither human nor animals. But we are inside his head, we are subjected to his thoughts, emotions, feelings, desires, motivations, memory, reflections, impressions. He was never been turned into a character in a novel, there are many ways. Gardner never lets us forget this: use of metafiction: intertextual references to beowulf, self-conscious about constructed nature of language, literature, stories & art, pov is foregrounded, (do not assume grendel represents gardner"s view) We get the narrative from grendel"s perspective.
